Chapter 2

Episode 8 - Normal Run of Things

Brady woke with a jolt in the dark of his room to the sudden consciousness that he was not, in fact, driving a minivan-turned-school-bus where Grace’s entire first grade class and the dogs from her favorite cartoon were staging a full-on drum concert, but the wave of relief retreated in an instant when the dizzying pain in his skull continued to pulse to the same beat.

Oh, Father, today? As if Rachelle doesn’t have enough on her plate…

Bile and dread churned in his stomach, and Brady closed his eyes and tried to breathe as slowly as he could, hoping against hope that he might have hit the rare occurrence that would let itself be coaxed away with rest. He knew it was no use long before he stopped trying, but only after his stomach had launched a full-scale rebellion against DeAndre’s thoughtfully bland chicken and rice from the night before did he surrender to the inevitable and fumble for the button on his nightstand.

He didn’t count the seconds—and had never counted them before to compare—but they seemed to stretch endlessly before an unfamiliar set of footsteps squeaked in the hall. A flutter of worry and a tug of disappointment drifted through the misery, but Brady pushed them away with a determined satisfaction that Rachelle had made the wise choice to give herself as much sleep as she could.

It had been a while since he’d had to work with an actual nurse, and this one must have been completely unfamiliar with his file, judging from the way she casually flipped on the light the minute she stepped into the room. Brady groaned and buried his face in the pillow as the glare seared into his brain, doubling the already fierce agony, but the nurse didn’t seem to get the message.

“What can I do for you?”

At least she kept her voice relatively quiet, although she didn’t make any real attempt at whispering. Brady swallowed hard and tried to breathe, praying for the strength to explain.

“Light—p-please. Migraine.”

The nurse hummed a note that Brady couldn’t interpret and adjusted the intensity of the bulb enough to bring the clamor in his head down to four alarms instead of five. He could hear her shuffling around in the room but couldn’t open his eyes to follow her and hadn’t worked up the confidence to open his mouth again when she huffed.

“Your chart is ridiculously incomplete. How am I supposed to know what to give you for it and when?”

Had he told Rachelle lately just how much he appreciated her? As soon as he could actually think again, he was going to find a way to show her, at least in some small measure. But waiting for her to swoop in and fix things wouldn’t help anything now, and Brady gritted his teeth and forced his lips to move.

“Doc—Mattox knows. It’s—special.”

“And it so happens that she’s not on duty at the moment. Are you going to take my help, or shall I page the doctor on call?”

Okay, she had to be new, and he didn’t have any designs on her job, but this was ridiculous. If she wasn’t going to get help, he’d have been better off not even calling her—at least that way he wouldn’t have had to deal with the light and the noise and the argument on top of the existing migraine.

“Please. Check again.” A few moments ago, he’d been trying his hardest to wait it out, but the cracks of light that still somehow found his eyes in the depth of the pillow had reduced him to full-on begging. “I—I can’t—” Another wave of hot sickness convulsed him, compounded by the nurse’s sharp exclamation in his ears. Brady could sense her hovering but couldn’t possibly communicate how much he wanted her to just leave at the moment. He’d deal with it all—he’d done it before—he could wait until Dr. Mattox woke up. Honestly, he’d rather suffer through the whole length of the migraine than deal with one more minute of trying to explain to a nurse who didn’t get it. But he was too weak to fight, or even to try, and the helplessness only added to his misery.

“Brady?” The new voice was quiet and sleepy, but the hint of concern in it escalated to a choking gasp. “Oh, my word! What are you doing?”

Even with his eyes closed, Brady knew the instant the light clicked fully off, and he nearly cried with relief, even as Marcus’s whispered outburst continued.

“Do you have any idea how bad things have to get before Brady even thinks to call for help? Or how much worse the littlest bit of light makes it? And why are you still standing here when I know he asked you to get the doctor?”

“I’m not just going to wake up the director of the center in the middle of the night for a headache I could treat on my own if someone would just chart things correctly!” Her voice was loud enough that Brady would have winced even without the headache, and Marcus lengthened what might have been a frustrated huff into a longsuffering breath.

“Don’t care if you wake up everyone else in the hall, though. And you’ve got no idea how things work down here. Ever stop to think there might be a reason there’s no instructions? It’s because nothing helps us at all—besides the experimental stuff only Dr. Mattox can give. And how are you supposed to help anybody with a migraine by turning the lights on and yelling?”

“Excuse me?” The nurse’s voice was indignant, but she did lower it a little, though not nearly enough for his painfully heightened senses. “I have no idea who you are, but you’ve got no business butting in on another patient’s care. Go back to your own room and let me handle this.”

An involuntary whimper tore from Brady’s throat, and the next instant, Marcus’s hand gripped hard over top of his.

“Brady? Is there anything you need from her right now?”

“No.” Brady ground the word out in a hoarse voice that could almost have rivaled Dash’s for roughness, and the woman gave an incredulous snort.

“Go.” Marcus’s whisper deepened into what might almost have been called a growl. “He doesn’t need you. And you just said there’s nothing you can do anyway. Write it up however you want—treatment refused, against advice, nobody cares. Just get out of here.”

Brady could almost hear the grinding of the nurse’s teeth, but after an achingly long moment of tense silence, her footsteps retreated angrily back down the hall, and Brady couldn’t hold back a moan.

“Shh.” Marcus squeezed his hand harder, then moved to gently rub his back. “Give it a minute till I’m sure she’s gone, and then I’ll get the doctor. Don’t want her to wake anyone else up that isn’t already, or block me from getting her at all.”

“Thanks.” Brady barely managed to choke the word, and Marcus pressed his shoulder.

“Shh. You’re okay. Just breathe. I got you.”

Brady tried to obey—tried to breathe deeply—tried not to tremble beneath Marcus’s hand—but even with the light and noise removed, the overload of adrenaline still working through his system magnified the pain into a torrent like he hadn’t experienced in years, and he couldn’t fully stifle the sobs that ripped through him.

Marcus murmured softly under his breath—indistinct words that might or might not have been a prayer, but somehow the rhythm took him back to when his mom would pray by his bedside, especially back when his migraines had just started and he hadn’t yet learned to live with the pain. And gradually the sound or the gesture or the memory tugged him gently back from the brink and settled his rattled spirit into something resembling rest.

“You good if I leave for a second?” Marcus whispered finally, and Brady managed to fumble a weak thumbs-up.

In less time than he would have believed, the doctor was in his room, and although from the strength of her grasp and the agitation of her movements, he guessed Marcus had given her at least an inkling of what had happened, she didn’t say a word or ask a question as she injected the sedative, and Brady let the soothing darkness sweep him away.

When he came to again, it was to the sound of a soft, sniffling moan, and Brady’s eyes flew open, then narrowed in confusion at the sight of Marcus half asleep, leaning on his elbow against the bedside table.

“You okay, bud?”

“Am I okay? Are you okay?” Marcus’s raised eyebrows turned into a yawn, but he leaned forward and studied Brady with sleepy concern. “That was ridiculous. Dr. Mattox says she’s new, and it’s never happening again. Can you hear her?”

“Dr. Mattox?” Brady let his still erratic senses wander, then winced as the doctor’s strident, angry tones from the floor above registered. “Oof. Yeah. Feel kind of bad for her, not gonna lie.”

“You wouldn’t if you’d seen yourself laying there.” Emotion tightened Marcus’s voice, and Brady reached out and gripped his hand tightly, regardless of the sweat that still slicked his own fingers.

“Sorry you had to deal with that. Really appreciate your help, though. What were you doing awake?”

“Not sure. Might have been drifting in and out, and she woke me up the rest of the way. Glad I was, though.”

“Ugh, I hope she didn’t wake up everyone else.” Brady cautiously let his hearing bleed into the room next to his, but Dash’s heavy breathing was impossible to interpret, and he’d made himself a pledge a long time ago not to actually spy on that room without a very good reason. “You should go back to sleep, Marcus. No need to run yourself down when you’re doing so well.”

“Yeah, ’cause you and Rachelle are the only ones allowed to be up in the middle of the night, even for an emergency.” Marcus wrinkled his nose, and Brady grinned.

“Not quite true. You’d all say the same thing to me, and I’d say it to Rachelle too.”

“You know after she hears about this, she’s never going to let a night call go to the nurses again.” Marcus scrunched his face up a little as he stood, and Brady grimaced, then froze as his hearing unconsciously reached out to the room beyond Dash’s and caught the sound of soft, sobbing breaths.

“Hey, you okay?” Marcus was watching him worriedly, and Brady quickly shook his head to clear it as he sat up.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Just adjusting. Go back to bed, bud. I won’t be heading out any time soon.”

“Promise to wake me up when you do?”

Brady hesitated a few seconds over the answer, but he had more pressing concerns to deal with at the moment, and an argument wasn’t going to help Marcus sleep anyway.

“Yeah. I’ll wake you. Now go to sleep.”

Marcus grinned and disappeared back into his room, and Brady began quietly readying himself for the day, waiting until the teen’s breathing had begun to lengthen before slipping out his door and over to Rachelle’s room.